Regret
by ourfavegaypotato
Summary: England reminisces about the first love of his life, Queen Elizabeth 1 and the times he spent with her from when she was a small child till the day she died and realizes the heart ache that loving a mortal can bring. There is usuk/ukus at the end... Contains: England/America France/Joan England/Queen Elizabeth 1


I would recommend listening to Golden Days by Panic! at the Disco while reading this.

I still remembered the first time met her, she was but a small child, she had an air of dignity that none of the other children she was too wise for her years. Her hair was bright and her eyes brighter and her voice spoke words that I have long since forgotten. I had just thrown aside my pirate ways once I had beat Spain and secured the sea for my glorious country.

Years passed before I saw her again, she was around 16 now and her beauty had only grown, now instead of being an elegant and sophisticated child, she was a wild adolescent with flowing red hair and a distinct lack of the manners that were so highly revered back then.

I lied, I didn't want to tell her I was the country she was soon to rule. Instead I said I was a monarch from far away. I snuck her out at night and we had many adventures, I taught her how to fight, how to ride horses and shoot bows. There was a time where she was better than me but society dragged her back in and she lost the wild untamed fire in her eyes.

It was her twenty fourth birthday that I realised I was in love with her, she was no longer too young for me court and we had wonderful times together. She began to notice that I never aged, when she questioned it I blew it of as a joke, I didn't want her to realise how different we were.

The marriage proposals to Elizabeth started flooding in after that, it's not like they didn't come before that but now they were in torrents, letter after letter, dance after dance, she rejected them all. I felt terrible, I was torn between her and what would be better for me. I, England, needed a King and she would never marry another while I was around.

So I gathered her in one last kiss and left her before she turned 29. It took me ten years to properly leave her. I stayed at her bedside at night, watched at the masquerade parties behind a smiling mask and never let anyone hurt her. I was her secret guardian angel.

When I finally did leave it was jealousy that drove me away, in those nine years she never looked at another twice at another until the tenth year when year when she started to return another's affection; I messed up that night.

While I was stalking down the hall, planning to leave the castle and never return I passed by her. She called my name and I ran.

I lived alone for the next thirty years, I had companions, friend and lovers but they never lasted more than a year. All the battles England fought since I left the castle, England fought alone. My country could fight its own wars.

I was swimming in my own sympathy when the news reached my ears that she was dying I raced to the castle. People who I used to know, who knew who I was let me in. I never asked if they ever told her what I was.

She had changed so much in the years I had left, her face was wrinkled and her hair was grey at the roots where the die had worn off. Her eyes were clouded; they were no longer piecing with vibrancy and life.

I stayed at her side until the life had left her completely and I cried. It had been so long since I had every let myself feel emotion and I reached up to touch the tears to see if they were real or a figment of my imagination.

Attending her funeral was even worse than watching her die. Everyone was dressed in black crying weeping but there was a lack of sincerity in their eyes.

They didn't care for her, not like I did.

After a year people had stopped visiting the grave every day of the week so I could sit there for hours. It was the closest thing I had to her even if it was just a grave stone with her name and a rotting body beneath.

I tried to comprehend the hundreds of years I would have to live without her and I was reminded of France. He had loved Joan like I loved Elizabeth and I had killed her.

I remember laughing at him for being so attached to a human of all things, she was going to die one day and I just saved him prolonged pain. He had cried and cried, at the time he had begged me to stop, and to spite him I had burned the body twice.

I had so much more time with her then France had with Joan, Francis deserved it so much more than I did.

I pulled a pen and paper from my bag and began to write, I had to tell him how sorry I was. How I regretted every second of what I put him through.

The letter weighed heavily in my hand as I walked toward the stables, a crack of thunder was released overhead and the rain started to fall. Destroying the letter turning it to pulp in my hand as it washed the dirty pavement clean and drenched me from head to toe, it felt like the cold was piercing his heart.

Maybe he could just let her go, maybe the world was meant to be painful, maybe he would learn to love again.

But until that day he would just live with the pain.

He didn't want to remind Francis of all he had lost, so maybe the rain had come and destroyed the note for a reason.

I still regret never giving France that letter,

Maybe I had

I would still have America

But

After all

I took Joan from France so he took Alfred from me.

Maybe if I hadn't been so stubborn

And prideful

I would have learned what the world was trying to tell me

Maybe if I tried to mend the bridge between Francis and I

He wouldn't have taken the second love of my life


End file.
